Scientists and engineers can spend years of their lives in painstaking trial-and-error experimentation to develop a breakthrough new technology…and the military-industrial complex can find a way to militarize it in mere hours. (Assuming that the research wasn’t being funded by the military in the first place, of course.)

Sadly the military aren’t the only ones interested in the latest gadgets and inventions, though. The alphabet soup agencies are equally voracious for innovative new ways to spy on the public. Today let’s examine five of the most amazing technological breakthroughs…that are about to be turned into nightmarish spying tech.